After the Conquest
by DeltaMLP
Summary: Taylor ends up getting most of post-conquest ending Nepgear's abilities. My first fic!
1. Prologue

This is my first attempt at fanfiction so please be gentle! Please let me know about things I should fix or improve on also.

This story takes place after the conquest ending in Hyperdimension Neptunia rebirth;2 (Spoilers btw J)

Nepgear stood on the Neptower, looking over what was now her nation of Gamindustri. It had been 4 years since she had been forced to kill the other CPUs and CPU candidates for the sake of Gamindustri.

She snorted to herself; that had been the biggest mistake in her life. She glanced off the tower upon the riot destroyed streets below and finalized her decision. There would be no going back from here.

"Nepgear, no!" Histoire shouted at the top of her lungs. And flew between Nepgear and the dimensional tear.

"Sorry Histy, but there's a chance that going through this dimensional tear will let me go back in time and fix my mistakes." Nepgear, the now sole CPU of Gamindustri said. "The other goddesses believed that I could defeat Arfoire and save Gamindustri, but they were only half right. Arfoire let me kill her and I couldn't save the other nations. Lastation went into a war with Leanbox almost as soon as it was announced that I was the only living CPU after facing Arfoire. Lowee has over a 50% unemployment rate and it's getting worse. I'm even stronger than Arfoire now, but I can't just destroy the other nations. I would need them to join each other peacefully."

"It isn't too late Nepgear, according to my calculations it may take between 3 decades and 3 centuries but it isn't too late to save Gamindustri! And besides, using the dimensional gap is just as likely take you forwards in time, into another dimension, or destroy you entirely."

"Heh, destroy me entirely? I doubt it. Ever since Gehaburn was bound to me I haven't noticed the low shares affecting me anymore. It increased the small amount of share energy I naturally produced into more than enough sustain my HDD form for days even, more than enough to take care of any trouble."

"Nepgear… We need you here in Gamindustri, you are the only Goddess remaining; you are the only one who is qualified to lead us." Histoire said.

"Sorry Histoire, but this has to work, if not then… I guess I'll finally get to see Neptune again. Now get out of the way of my way."

"I'm sorry Nepgear, I can't just - "

Gehaburn suddenly materialized in Nepgear's hand in a flurry of data like energy, "Panzer Blade!" Nepgear suddenly shouted, and she rushed Histoire.

Histoire, startled by the sudden attack, dived to the left before realizing what Nepgear's goal really was in attacking her. She whipped back around to see Nepgear's ankle disappearing into the portal and it closed behind her.

"I'm sorry I didn't help you more Nepgear, and good luck."

"Wherever you end up.

End prologue


	2. Chapter 1

There was blood and tampons in her face and Taylor need out! Taylor was panicking even more now, the bugs were all over her and biting Her Oh god, was this how she was going to die? She nEEdeD OuT. ShE NEedeD CONTRO-

Destination.

Agreement.

Trajectory.

Agree-ERROR.

After Nepgear jumped into an unknown dimensional rift, the first thing that happened, was that her body was torn to pieces in the oblivion. Her soul however floated on, having no universal rules in the dimensional gap on where to go now that she was dead. As luck happened though, a tiny hole was created in one set of dimensions that she was floating by right as she was outside it.

This set of closely related universes had people constantly defying the laws of physics and ripping holes in their universe so accidently slipping in wasn't hard. However this particular slipstream in the fabric of the universe was meant for a shard, and was directly connected to Taylor Hebert's brain. Which is right where Nepgear's soul ended up. Tired from spending countless years floating around in the void, Nepgear's soul didn't put up much of a struggle when it was assimilated into Taylor's mind, body, and soul.

TAYLOR

Something was different now, she could feel it. With hardly a thought, as if it was eager to be summoned, a dark purple blade appeared in her hand. The sword, Gehaburn: the Cursed Blade a voice seemed to whisper in her head before fading away, was glowing and had some form of purple energy swirling around it. It seemed hungry, and wrong somehow but it was perfect right now. She pressed the sword against the locker door and the sword seemed to eagerly cut through it.

Taylor landed in the now empty hallway with a crash, the locker door now half on the frame and half beneath her on the hallway floor. She quickly dispersed her sword into the odd data looking energy that is had formed from.

This, this was beyond bullying. Emma, Sophia, and Madison had just tried to Kill her.

That thought struck Taylor harder than even the bullying that she had put up with for the past year and a half. In the back of her mind, Taylor had somehow thought that it wouldn't be impossible for Emma to realize what a mistake she had made and they could make up and be friends again.

After this though…

Taylor got up and stumbled for a second. She noticed there were still bug bites all over her and that her nose was broken and absent mindedly cast heal on herself using the odd magic that she somehow knew that she had gained.

She started walking towards the bathroom to clean off and - Wait. She was a cape! She could help people now! She just had to make herself a costume and she could help people with the sword she could summon and the magic she could use!

Taylor almost summoned the sword to her side again before she realized that she was in Winslow and probably shouldn't swing swords in the middle of school hallways. She was too excited though. As she walked into the girls bathroom and washed her face and clothes off a bit she excitedly thought to herself. She could become a hero!

She had to get home and practice using her new powers as soon as possible.


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Taylor finally got home and once she got inside she found a note on the table.

Taylor,

I have to work later than usual tonight, I should get home by eight o clock. There's leftovers in the fridge.

Love,

Dad

"I barely see him anymore, it's barely like we even live in the same house" Taylor mumbled to herself as she grabbed the bowl of leftover spaghetti from the fridge and dumped some of it onto a plate. "Well whatever, at least I can get in some practice time with my powers now." Taylor put the plate of spaghetti and meat sauce into the microwave and started heating it up.

"Alright I know I can use magic for at least healing and I thing I can use some magic with my sword, but can I do anything else with it?" Taylor asked herself as she waited for her food to cook.

"Right now what I need is practice and to learn the specifics of my powers." Taylor pulled her food out of the microwave and sat down at the table to eat it. "I'll have to go somewhere else besides here so I don't accidently blow up my house…"

Taylor glanced at the clock, it was already 6:23. She was glad that at least it was a Friday so she didn't have to worry about school tomorrow.

The first thing that she needed was a costume, there was no way that she could become a hero like they did in new wave, with their identities being common knowledge. They could come after her and her Dad at any point so a mask was a must. _I never want to lose anyone else that's close to me. Especially not after the other CPUs_ she absently thought to herself.

Taylor had finished eating at this point so she put her dishes away and went upstairs to see if she had any costume material clothes.

She looked through her dresser and closet and sighed. The best thing that she had was an old, gray, form concealing hoody.

"Well I guess it's not like I'll be fighting crime in this." Taylor mumbled to herself, "As long as I get a real costume within like a week or so, then I should be fine."

"I'll go and buy a cheap mask anyway just to make sure that no one recognizes me for now."

Her plan decided, Taylor decided to head over to the boat graveyard, since there usually wasn't anyone over there, and there was ample amounts of broken boats, sitting around and perfect for destruction. If she destroyed them a little bit, it would be like she was helping the city by disposing of a few of the ships.

Yes.

Alright, so it might still be considered vandalism, but she wasn't overly concerned. No one used that area and there were always plenty of reports about capes using the area to fight each other.

Taylor wrote a new note for her Dad and put it on the table before leaving the house and going to the bus stop to head to a Halloween mask store and the boat graveyard. She was trying to think of new ideas for uses of her magic.

The only other cape that she had even heard of having magic on PHO was Myrddin.

Myrddin… was not the most respected of capes on said forum.

Nobody was really sure what his power was since he could fly, use banishment, and had access to some kind of pocket dimension, but claiming to have magic seemed like a bad plan overall.

Eh, she could just call it energy and claim that she could shape it at least. It wasn't necessary for people to know exactly what her power set was. Although usually the names of capes was based on their power set, so what would her name be?

Warlock? _No too masculine and I_ _don't want people thinking that I'm crazy for claiming to use magic_ she thought to herself.

 _Maybe something sword related? I guess I could call myself Gehaburn after the sword I carry._ Yet somehow just the idea of naming herself after the sword filled her with revulsion.

She seemed to know instinctively that the sword itself represented power, but at the cost of the lives of others. It would be alright to use, but she still regretted having to be near it so much.

The bus stopped and Taylor got out and headed to the Halloween store. The store was nearly empty and the employee behind the register wasn't really paying attention beyond nodding in her direction when she came in. Taylor looked through what they had, and ended up buying a cheap, mass produced, domino themed masks that they had. She reasoned to herself that she could buy a better one later when she had saved up more money and had a proper costume set up.

When she got out of the store she put the mask away in her hoody pocket, no point in wearing it or carrying around a cheap bag.

She then got on a different bus and headed down towards the boat graveyard.

The closest stop that the bus loop had to the boat graveyard was a couple blocks away so Taylor got off on that stop and jogged all the way into the graveyard.

When she got there she noticed that she wasn't the least bit tired despite jogging several blocks. She was in decent shape before she got her powers, but not good enough to not feel that jog at all.

 _Huh, I guess I have a bit of a brute rating then._ She thought to herself.

"Okay" Taylor put on her new mask and walked further in, materializing her sword as she did so.

She walked in front of one of the boat hulls, "Let's see how sharp this sword is" she muttered to herself and swung at the hull.

It sliced through it easily and Taylor's eyes widened. "Crap, how I going to use this sword non lethally against criminals?"

She could maybe use the sword against the cape members of the ABB and E88, but against rapists and robbers? Well okay, maybe against rapists too.

Eh she may as well practice with it more to see what she can do.

She leaned back and held her sword in a ready position. She seemed to instctively know what to do next.

The edge of her sword started glowing slightly and she swung, "Slash Wave!" Taylor shouted as she swung her sword.

A glowing wave of energy shot from her blade, damaging the ship's hull where it went through, but not outright cutting through it, and staying together for about fifty feet before it seemed to lose its cohesion and dissipated.

Huh, that seemed to take more energy than healing did. To make sure Taylor cast heal on herself again. Sure enough heal seemed to take about half the energy that Slash wave did.

Well, whatever, maybe she could be another Panacea even if being a hero didn't work out.

Next she decided to try using her magic try to make an electric attack like a Taser so she could have an easy way to disable common criminals.

Three hours later Taylor decided that she definitely did not have an affinity for electric based magic. She had managed to make some weak electricity gather in her hand, but to do so had cost her more energy than using slash wave, and she had no good way to test if it was at Taser level or not.

She had even managed to shock herself with it while testing. Luckily most of it had been stopped on a weird force field that seemed to be permanently around her, so it was only at the level of a static shock. She ended up deciding to call her force field a break gauge since it only seemed to majorly reduce damage, and something about that name just felt right.

Since her energy levels seemed to be down to about an eighth of way full Taylor decided that that was enough practice for today and headed home.

When she got home her Dad was already asleep so she ended up just changing and heading straight to bed.

Taylor smiled as lay there. She was going to be a hero and nothing could ruin it.


	4. Chapter 3

Alright so instead of having her trigger event in January, the bullies ended up shoving her down a flight of stairs then instead, Taylor ended breaking her wrist, but it was a similar situation: Danny found out about the bullying, bullies ended up not getting in trouble for a lack of evidence but the school paid the hospital bill. Her trigger event takes place on April 8th 2011 in this story because if she got 3 months of training in she'd be freaking OP. Well, more OP.

Chapter 3

Taylor spent the rest of the weekend attempting to use more types of her magic. She tried shooting the electricity that she had formed out at targets, but she didn't have very much control over it when she wasn't actively forming it. Also whenever she did manage to give it enough power to shoot and hit her target, the ground was always charred and crispy looking. Not great for the non-lethal takedown that she was looking for.

She could probably add electricity to a sword attack as she swung, but with Gehaburn that idea seemed kind of pointless since Taylor hadn't found anything in the boat graveyard that Gehaburn couldn't cut through when she was actively trying. It seemed like a waste of magic to practice that when she could be trying other new things that worked.

Taylor had a bit more luck when she tried using ice magic. She could consistently freeze her target until it would frost over, and if she froze small amounts of water near her then she could use them as projectiles. They only hit with maybe the power of a punch, but they could still be useful for small time criminals.

Taylor wanted to spend more time practicing her magic but it was already Sunday evening and she was starting to run low on energy. She didn't want anyone to try to attack her and be caught helpless. Sure she still carried her pepper spray around with her, but being able to electrocute or freeze someone at will was a better option than just having pepper spray.

Taylor started walking towards to bus stop, only making a detour to duck into an alley when no one was looking and taking off her domino mask. This had been a productive day, but it was the end of the weekend. That meant that school was coming up tomorrow. _I can defend myself against them now, but would that be an abuse of my power?_ Taylor sighed to herself, _even if I did use my power to defend myself against them would I be able to be subtle enough that they didn't notice?_

Taylor continued trying to think of ways to avoid Sophia, Emma, and Madison. She could always just leave or apply to Arcadia, but the waiting list for Arcadia was obscenely long and as tempting as it sounded she didn't think that she could get away with not going to high school.

 _I was a guardian and leader, it's not like I needed to go to Winslow for those two career paths. Okay, maybe if I planned on being a leader again._ Again? Why did she have the feeling of -…

"Stop 12" the voice said over the intercom interrupting Taylor's train of thought.

Taylor got off the bus and started lightly jogging toward her home.

Taylor walked inside her house, "I'm home Dad!" she said as she closed the door. She glanced at the clock, it was 7:28.

"Taylor, you're back!" He paused for a second and looked at me with a reluctant look on his face, "Look honey, we need to talk."

"Um, sure Dad, can it wait until after dinner though? I'm kind of sweaty from going out jogging."

"I uh … sure Taylor, we can talk then."

"Alright Dad…" she gave Danny an inquisitive glance before mentally shrugging and heading upstairs.

After Taylor's nice, toasty warm shower, she grabbed her pajamas which consisted of a too large t-shirt and pajama bottoms, and came downstairs.

Her Dad already had the Hamburger helper he had fixed for them ready and they sat down to eat it.

"Taylor, I'm worried about you… the school called earlier and they said something about a locker that had been sliced open and had bloody ta-, well blood on inside of it. Now you're vanishing all weekend? You haven't joined a gang right, you know you can always talk to me, or -"

"Dad." Taylor interrupted Danny, "I'm fine, better than fine, I just got started on a fitness kick this weekend."

"And the locker?"

"Sophia, Emma, and Madison tried shoving me in it." Taylor mumbled, "though I got lucky though and a um, new cape let me out."

"A new cape? What cape was passing through a school?"

"Uh, she didn't say her name but she seemed really nice" as Taylor said that a memory of a small girl with purple hair and two gamepad shaped hairclips suddenly came to minds forefront, "She uh, had purple hair though."

"Taylor, I'm here for you if you ever need to talk."

"I'm fine dad really, I got out right?" Taylor said, feeling a bit guilty for lying to her Dad's face. At least he didn't seem to notice yet. "Well, thanks for dinner Dad, I'm going to go to bed now alright, it's been a long day."

Danny looked disappointed but that was alright. As long as he was safe and not directly involved then everything would be fine.

Besides, she was doing this for his own good.

 _I won't let him die for me too._

Monday, the eleventh of April came far too soon for Taylor's tastes.

Sophia stared at Taylor as they passed in the hallway. Taylor stared angrily right back. _I stood up to Arfoire, you're nothing compared to her!_ Taylor thought furiously to herself. Wait, who was Arfoire? Why did she have the memory of facing down a demonic looking one eyed deity? Taylor's sudden puzzling train of thought must have shown on her face somewhat as Sophia snorted and pushed past her. With her break gauge, Taylor barely even noticed the collision.

Whatever, she could figure out what the creepy memories meant later, she was almost late for class.

She walked into Mr. Gladly's classroom with two minutes to spare. The fact that Madison was in this class with her and yet did nothing but smirk in her direction a little bit made Taylor more nervous than stupid juvenile pranks would have.

After class though Mr. Gladly called out to her "Taylor, Principal Blackwell wanted to see you in her office."

Taylor glanced suspiciously at Madison who, sure enough, was smirking. "Did she say why?"

"No but I'd hurry up I were you."

Taylor sighed and left for Blackwell's office. Once she got there Blackwell called out to her.

"Ah you're here, good. Now listen, this is about the locker that we have reports of you vandalizing and destroying."

"M-me destroying? Sophia, Madison, and Emma shoved me in that locker, it's sheer luck that I got out at all!"

"Right, so you admit it was you who destroyed the locker?"

Taylor getting annoyed with this whole stupid situation, but remembered the story she had told her Dad, of being rescued rather than triggering, "N-no, it was a cape with purple hair who managed to free me."

"Of course, and do you have any evidence of this 'cape who rescued you'?"

"What's that supposed to imply?!" Taylor nearly shouted.

"Calm down Ms. Hebert, we have reports of your careless and destructive behavior, and we've recently been getting reports of you bullying others."

 _Emma,_ Taylor realized. "What the hell, I've been submitting those forms for over a year now, and they broke my wrist back in January! Why on Earth would you listen to them over me?!"

"They, unlike you Ms. Hebert, have had evidence and witnesses instead of empty accusations. The reaction you're having now does not help your case either."

"Uh huh, right." Taylor said gritting her teeth, "So why did you call me up here again?"

Principal Blackwell stiffened slightly but continued on anyway, "Since you were the one who broke the locker, it is clear who should be the one to pay the bill."

"What?!"

"Since it is clear that you have no evidence of this alleged cape that rescued you, you are the only one who can be seen as responsible."

"I see." Taylor said, holding herself back from summoning Gehaburn to her hand. "However since there is no physical proof against me either we'll have to leave it at that, won't we?" Taylor asked hypothetically before leaving the office and ignoring whatever Blackwell was sputtering as she walked out.

She walked out the front entrance of the school before severity of what had just happened struck her, "Crap, I can't go back there after that." Taylor mumbled to herself before snorting slightly, "Well I guess I got my wish of never wanting to return there. I'm done here, I'll figure out another way to get my GED."

Then she started walking back home, already planning to go out on a patrol as a cape tonight to blow off some steam.


	5. Chapter 4 edited

I ended up changing the section with Armsmaster in this chapter because I was unhappy with how I ended up portraying him. He is now less 2d I hope.

Chapter 4

Taylor arrived at her home and immediately started looking around for a costume, "I knew I should have chosen a better cape costume by now." She muttered as she rifled through her clothes.

Eventually she chose to wear the gray hoody that she had worn while practicing magic and some black jeans to hide some of her features.

She finished getting dressed and looked in the mirror. She immediately smacked her forehead in exasperation when she saw her reflection.

"What the goodness was I thinking? I look more like I'd be the one dealing drugs than stopping it in this outfit." She muttered to herself. She looked much more like a vagabond than a hero, with faded jeans and a slightly worn looking hoody.

She then tried on the domino mask to see how it would look.

Eh now she looked like a parahuman gang member on their first night out. Well, half of that was true for her. The mask did cover enough features to be safe though. No one would recognize her with this mask on. Even if she didn't want to go to the PRT yet.

Taylor glanced at the clock, it was 11:51. She decided to eat lunch before she went out to patrol and went downstairs to throw together a sandwich.

As she walked downstairs, she absently noted that she had forgotten to bring home the sack lunch that she normally brought at school. Eh, it wasn't her problem anymore, now it was the schools'.

As she ate her freshly made sandwich, Taylor thought about the weird… flashbacks? Were they flashbacks if she was sure that they had never happened to her? She was remembering more and more random pieces of what seemed like someone else's life. Having meals, playing games, hunting… monsters? Okay so they might be someone else's life, they could also be a random fantasy that she dreamed up while still face-first in her locker.

After finishing her meal, she decided to make a stop by the public library to check PHO for any similar cases before she started patrolling. Better safe than sorry, random confusion during fights could be deadly, even with her break gauge active.

As Taylor walked to the library she wondered where she should patrol today. Now that she thought about it, she had no idea how she should go about this besides going into one of the sketchier parts of Brockton Bay and look for violent crimes, maybe by the docks?

Eh, she'd decide after she looked up if there were any other capes with similar side effects to their powers.

After walking in the in the library and signing into one of the available computers, Taylor immediately got onto PHO. She hadn't made an account yet since she had only checked it during her computer class in school, she didn't have a computer at home, and since she only lurked and didn't really post. It was probably for the best that she hadn't made an account yet since she could make one with her cape name now. Well, when she decided on what she would call herself anyway.

After spending 4 hours on PHO, Taylor finally admitted to herself that this was probably a dead end. She had learned quite a bit more on the physiology of case 53's when she was trying to find posts related to their memory loss, but nothing about gaining memories of another life. It was odd though, the memories she gained seemed to only be beneficial and helped understand her power far sooner than she would have without it. Or they were pointless and involved eating pudding with what appeared to be a young, purple haired girl of Japanese descent. Odd.

Maybe it was a safety feature then?

She _had_ learned that tinkers essentially get schematics inserted directly into their brain by their powers, and that they tended to follow themes, but not a whole lot else besides that on the tinker front. They didn't seem to understand their own technology beyond those blueprints if the posts were to be believed.

There was also the Butcher who had the mind of the previous butchers in their head, but seeing as Taylor wasn't being slowly driven to murder everyone that she saw, she doubted that that information would help her very much.

After signing off the computer, Taylor left the library and headed for her house to grab dinner. She had ended up not using midday to patrol or be a hero, but she kind of doubted that she would have found any obvious crimes in the middle of the day anyway.

Taylor ended up jogging home and arrived there around 5:24. Her Dad had beaten her home it seemed.

"Hey Taylor, you're back just in time to eat with me, go ahead and get washed up, dinner will be ready in five minutes."

"Alright, thanks Dad" Taylor called out.

She was poking at her food with a fork when she spoke up, "Dad, I don't think I can go to Winslow anymore."

"What do you mean Taylor?"

"I haven't mentioned all of it, but the bullying has been getting worse, and I-I can't put up with it anymore. They even have the principal basically eating out of their hands now. I was going to try to just ignore them and be the bigger person, but if Blackwell won't even listen to me… "

"… alright honey, we'll set something up for you if it's that bad and you really think that it's for the best."

"Thanks Dad, I love you."

"I love you too Taylor."

Later that night when her Dad was asleep, Taylor decided that she was going to patrol the docks. It was pretty obvious when she entered the more shady part since the pedestrians went from tourists and salary workers to drunks, prostitutes, and gang members.

She had been patrolling for about half an hour when she noticed a couple of Asians walking around in the red and green of the ABB. She decided to follow them figuring that even if they didn't do anything, then they might lead her to a gang safe house that she could call in.

She followed them, and ended up being led to a large group of other ABB members, there were about twenty other gang members there, all wearing red and green in some way. But that wasn't all, there was also, "Lung." Taylor gasped under her breath.

Everyone knew who Lung was, he was famous to even those who didn't pay attention to PHO as the man who managed to fight against the Leviathan to a standstill until it retreated.

She decided to listen in, if Lung was involved, then this wasn't something little that she could just ignore. Taylor silently moved a little closer to listen to what they were saying.

Lung was snarling, "…the children, just shoot. Doesn't matter your aim, just shoot. You see one lying on the ground? Shoot the little bitch twice more to be sure. We give them no chances to be clever or lucky, understand?"

There was a murmur of assent.

 _Crap, this isn't something that I can just report to the police later, he's killing children?!_

Someone else lit up a cigarette, and then leaned over to light a cigarette for the guy next to him. In those moments that his hand wasn't cupped around the flame, Taylor saw the gathered faces of just a dozen or so of the gang members gathered around Lung. In hands, waistbands and holsters, she could see the dark metal of guns reflecting the orange flame. They were mostly likely all armed with guns.

Damn it, if she had to face off against guns, then she would need a better brute rating. They probably wouldn't even bruise her with her break gauge up, but she didn't want to test how long it would stay up. She knew what she needed, "I can do this, Defensive Cheer!" she whispered to herself, and she felt a surge of energy go into her break gauge and into her skin, fortifying her even further.

 _Alright Taylor, think, you need a way to get their attention. Well, I have an idea and my break gauge should stand up to bullets now, but it's a risk._

"Alright, let's head out." Lung was saying.

Well, now was good of a time as any. Taylor stepped out and formed a small sphere of electricity in one hand and held Gehaburn in the other. "I'm afraid I can't let you do that." She said, trying her hardest to seem nonchalant, and not nervous out of her mind.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" Lung asked the gang members, some of whom opened fire. They stopped after they saw that it didn't seem to affect her.

"Damn, she's a brute. You guys head back for now, I'll deal with this and meet up with you in a couple of minutes."

Lung turned back to face Taylor, "So you're a brute huh, let's see how you stand up to my fire!" Lung shouted as he hurled a basketball sized fireball at Taylor's head.

 _Damn it, this might be bad if this is the weakest he'll be in a fight. I'll try negating it!_ Taylor thought to herself, and she sent out a burst of ice magic focused of the flame.

The ice attack seemed to mostly work, it did reduce the fireball to the size of a baseball, but Taylor doubted that her weak ice magic would help once Lung ramped up a bit more.

 _I need to end this and quick!_ Taylor readied her sword and swung at Lung, "Slash Wave!" she shouted as she let out the burst of energy.

The hit struck Lung straight on and caused a slash to open up on his chest and for him to stumble back from the force of the impact.

 _Did it work, was that enough to take on Lung?_ Then Lung stood up straighter, and roared. His chest was already healing and being covered in scales. He rushed at Taylor, his hand was looking more like a claw now, and had scales forming a razor sharp point.

Lung charged straight at her, seemingly intent rushing her, as Taylor swung Gehaburn at his arm.

He didn't bother avoiding it, probably thinking that his scales would deflect the sword strike. They didn't.

Unfortunately, now that Lung knew her sword could cut him fairly easily, he was taking care to avoid it. Now he was dodging it completely or, more commonly, slapping it aside by the flat of the blade.

The fight was actually fairly even for a while since Taylor was managing to slash at him whenever he got too close, and her break gauge was blocking the damage that did leak through. But Lung just kept ramping up, he was now almost entirely covered in scales.

Then Lung covered himself in his fire and rushed her and she didn't manage to block, or swing at him in time. His scaled hand slashed at her stomach and her break gauge didn't completely protect her, he sliced through her sweatshirt and caused her to fly back into a building three meters behind her.

When she impacted with the building, it happened. Her break gauge was empty. In an instant Taylor felt the full onslaught of the heat that was being held back.

This was going to be the end for her, she had failed yet again. She had tried fighting the Lung and was now paying for her stupidity.

"No." Taylor felt an overwhelming rush of her energy come over her, "No! I don't care that you're Lung!" the energy surged up and surrounded her for a few seconds and when it came down, she felt … different, but stronger and more powerful now. "I'll stop you anyway! As the Goddess of Planeptune I won't allow you to kill children!" Taylor wasn't sure why she had said that, but it had seemed to fit perfectly.

Everything about Taylor felt more sleek and powerful now, she felt like she could take on the Slaughterhouse 9 and win!

Even though Lung was completely covered in scales and looking inhumane he still looked… amused? Wait did he just laugh at her?! "We'll see who's laughing soon Lung."

Lung narrowed his eyes again and roared. He spat another gout of flame at her and then rushed at her.

Taylor let her instincts take over, "May the CPU's bless us, Offensive Cheer!" Taylor shouted as jumped into the air and flew over Lung's head. She felt an influx of the power she released, in her body making her stronger as she flew back towards Lung. Taylor gasped to herself softly, wait, she was flying! With the powers of a flying mover and a high level brute, she could be the next Alexandria and- . No, Bad Taylor! Focus on the fight that you're in the middle of!

Taylor landed on the street behind Lung and started preparing one of her attacking moves that seemed second nature. As she did so she glanced down noticed that her body and clothes had changed. Significantly.

Taylor wasn't very happy with her normal physical appearance. There was nothing horribly unattractive about her, but she was just plain. Unlikely to ever stand out for her looks. Her lips were a bit too big for her face and her chest was not at all in proportion to her ninety fifth percentile height at five foot eight. Those reasons were why she tended to wear t-shirts and hoodies that didn't show off her figure.

Now, however, she was wearing what appeared to be high tech styled leggings, similar sleeves, and what could pass as a black and lilac themed, tinker tech bikini that was showing off her flat stomach and the flare of her hips. _Was it tinker tech? Usually they have to build it themselves…_ Also, what the goodness? She was now at least one cup size bigger than she was before and she had more of the model type hourglass figure.

Her lilac hair was gently flowing down her-. _Why is my hair a different color?!_

Taylor was so caught up in her newly changed appearance that she barely managed to deflect Lungs scale covered hand that was lunging straight towards her throat. She managed to hit his arm aside with the flat of Gehaburn, but still had her shoulder scraped by his claw, and was tackled with a significant portion of his mass and that sent her flying backwards towards a building that she would have collided with were it not for her newfound flight capability. Even without that, his attack took out a sixth of her newly reformed break gauge.

 _No more holding back._

"Limiter release. Output maximized. I'll use everything I have with this!" Taylor shouted and she lunged forwards, slicing upwards with Gehaburn against Lung's scaled torso. Lung's scales held against Gehaburn for a brief second before giving in and being cleanly sliced through.

The attack wasn't finished yet however. Taylor moved with the swing away from Lung for about a meter before she rapidly changed directions using her flight and swung at him again. This strike slashed through his back, severing his part of his spine and causing him to roar in pain and anger.

But Taylor wasn't done yet, Lung didn't even have time to fall to the ground before she reversed directions and sliced through his flesh again. And again. And again. Each time she came at him from a different angle and he was helpless in defending himself against the rapid series of attacks. Six time she came at him from different angles and sliced through him.

After the sixth strike she landed three meters in front of him and reversed directions again, in the blink of an eye. This time, her sword was positioned to stab straight through his chest instead of dealing out a glancing slice. Sword met scale again, and the sword won. There was a sickening sound of flesh giving out and bones cracking.

"Celestial Severance" Taylor said spitefully, Gehaburn still impaled in Lung's chest.

Taylor might have gone a little bit overkill in this battle, but it was Lung after all, he could take it. Anyone who had seen his PHO page knew that the longer he was in a fight, the faster he healed and the bigger he got. Since he was nine feet tall and his wounds were already visibly healing when she stabbed him, he would recover fine.

And then Gehaburn started glowing in a malevolent shade of purple.

In an instant Lung started shrinking down to his human size and the blood pouring out of him increased. Gehaburn glowed even brighter and the life faded from Lung as he collapsed, completely unmoving on the ground. The sword seemed almost hungry and starved for Lung's… was it his power or his life force it was trying to consume?

Oh no.

I heard footsteps coming up from one of the alleyways near me.

 _I-I did this. Damn it, I knew that Gehaburn could have this effect and I did this anyway._

"Hey, hey are you alright? Thanks for the save there we really, oh, oh shit…" the feminine voice suddenly said, going from a smug tone to a regretful and suddenly sympathetic one.

Taylor felt soft arms wrap around her, "Shit this is my fault; I didn't know that your sword had a weird life draining ability or I would've had my team interfere with the fight." She felt the arms around her squeeze a little tighter when she said that. It was … nice. It reminded Taylor of the hugs that she got from her mother long ago… before she became a murderer.

"Listen, I'm Tattletale, this is the rest of my team: Regent, Grue, and Bitch is back there with the dogs." Taylor looked at Tattletale as she spoke, Tattletale was a couple of inches shorter than her with dirty blond hair and a domino mask, and was motioning at each of her teammates in turn with the names, "we don't have a lot of time left before PRT gets here and they don't like us very much. They won't like that you killed Lung either, even though it was self-defense. Do you want to come with us before they get here?"

"N-no, I'll stay here, they deserve an explanation." Taylor said softly, still staring at the ground.

Tattletale looked at her and winced before stating, "Alright, be careful though, they might try to pin the whole incident on you. You should also do something about that cut on your shoulder so it doesn't get infected." Tattletale and the rest her team jogged out of sight, into a different alley where the dogs were being kept.

That was right, Lung had cut her shoulder a bit, "Healing powers, come to me." One softly glowing green light later and she was good as new.

Distantly, Taylor heard the sound of a motorcycle approaching her, the noise of the engine stopped and she heard slow, but measured footsteps approaching her.

"Identify yourself, Hero or Villain?"

Instinctively she blurted out the first thing that appeared in her head, "I'm Nepgear" Taylor said. She wasn't sure why she had handed out that as her cape name, but it seemed to fit.

She glanced back down at Lung's motionless body, "I'm a hero…" she said softly, even though she didn't really believe that anymore. Not after this.

 _I just wanted to protect the kids he was after._

He paused, "How long have you been a 'hero'?" he asked, his armor shined lightly in the moonlight making him look even more heroic.

"T-tonight was my first night out…" Taylor said before looking back at Lung's corpse.

Armsmaster sighed deeply, it sounded odd hearing such and ordinary sound coming from such a well-known hero. Taylor looked back at him and saw that he no longer had his halberd at the ready.

He walked over to the curb of the road and patted the spot next to him, "Come on, go ahead and sit down. There are a few things that we should probably talk about."

"Um, alright." Taylor walked over to where he was sitting and sat a few feet away from him.

"It'll be for the best if you join the wards."

"I don't -" Taylor started to say.

"You don't have to agree to anything right now or even tell us your identity, although it looks like that doesn't matter much to you since your costume doesn't have a mask."

"Huh?!" Taylor said intelligently, she looked around for a mirror and saw a large window. She jogged over to it and looked at her reflection.

The shape of her cheeks and eyes were more similar to her face that her memories of Nepgear's. She was also taller than Nepgear ever was and her nose was a little bit more defined. _I'm beautiful now._ Taylor thought to herself, as she wondered how long she could stay in this form. Activating it seemed to take a good amount of her magic, but if the result was looking like this… Well she wouldn't be missing her old body; that would be for sure.

Her facial features now had a distinctly Japanese look about her, though the fact that her hair was lilac and her eyes were a vivid sky blue seemed to contrast with that. Her skin now was smooth and unblemished, her face was perfectly symmetrical, and her bright blue eyes with what looked like power symbols instead of pupils only made her look more exotic.

Her outfit was… Wait. Taylor felt her cheeks heating up. She had fought Lung wearing this? It had seemed perfectly natural at the time, but now that she was thinking about it, her outfit looked like she was wearing a risqué bikini. The crystalline wings with a design reminiscent of circuitry were exactly the same shade as her hair and made her outfit seem a little less like lingerie.

Taylor kind of wanted to change her processor unit into something a little more… modest, but ever since she had activated her HDD form, it was if a block had been broken. She now understood just how much better her Processor Unit was since it was aerodynamic and form fitting, there wasn't a need to add more material to it. Taylor was remembering more and more of Nepgear's life and while a great deal of it wasn't very useful, apparently the technology was very far ahead of Earth Bet.

Armsmaster called out, interrupting her train of thought, "Are you saying that you didn't build your costume?"

"I don't think I did," Taylor paused; ever since she had transformed, a lot more knowledge about her abilities were flowing more freely into her mind, "But I think I understand how it works now."

Taylor could almost see his raised eyebrow as he skeptically asked, "So you aren't a tinker, Nep-'gear'?"

Taylor was about to deny it, but a schematic of a full dive virtual reality headset that she had memories of designing came to her mind, "I-I'm not sure…"

Seeing Armsmaster manage to look even more incredulous, Taylor hurriedly blurted out "My power came with a lot of memories of how to use it; I also know how to make some technology and how this processor unit works." She motioned at her outfit as she said that.

"I see… Anyway, if you're reckless enough to challenge Lung on your first night out then you need to be backed by the PRT. You won't last long otherwise."

"He said he was going to kill children, I couldn't just watch!"

Armsmaster frowned, "That doesn't sound much like Lung, he's involved in a lot of illegal activities but I've never heard of him outright killing innocents, especially not in person. Anyway the ABB will be out for your blood once they find out that you killed Lung. You should get a mask first and foremost, maybe even leave the city since Bakuda and Oni Lee will probably try to blow up your family if she find out your identity."

Taylor flinched, the other capes of the ABB had slipped her mind completely.

"One of the safest options for you right now is to join the wards division of the protectorate. Your actions here will have major consequences and you'd be safer with the PRT. Now that Lung is dead the E88 won't hesitate in taking more of the ABB's territory and there could be serious civilian casualties. Bakuda was a loose cannon even while being under Lung's control, now she'll have free reign to try to control of the ABB and their territory. Another ward on patrol and in the response team would do a lot for helping the city."

Taylor didn't really want to join the wards yet, but when Armsmaster put it like that it didn't sound like she had a choice. "I'll think about it," Taylor said inwardly thinking of the conversation she'd need to have with her Dad before that could happen.

Armsmaster stood up, "Alright the sooner you get in contact with us the better," he started walking back to his motorcycle, "remember what I said about a mask though."

"Oh, that's not an issue right now, my face and body is different in this form." Taylor called back to him, _I didn't mention that to him yet?_

Armsmaster turned back around and looked at her oddly, "You're a changer?" he turned back and got on his motorcycle, "Well anyway, you'll get your power tested if you do decide to join the wards and we can find out more about it then."

As he rode away on his motorcycle Taylor was nervously thinking about the future.

 _Crap, now gangs are going to be after me and I probably have to join the wards. How do I tell Dad about this?_


End file.
